HE MAY be the boss of a Cheshire-based hotels and leisure group, but Carl Leaver has not exactly had much time to take it easy since he took over as De Vere's chief executive.

Previously the managing director of the budget hotel chain Travel Inn, he had barely made himself comfortable in the top seat, when it became the hot seat. Rebel investor Guinness Peat Group launched an aggressive attack to try and force the company to off-load its four and five-star hotels business, to maximise shareholder value, by selling off these assets and returning the cash to investors.

The bid eventually came to nothing after De Vere spent é1m over a year fighting it off. But it was a "lengthy, unnecessary and costly distraction" says De Vere, overshadowing, as it did, Mr Leaver's ambitious plans to improve returns from its De Vere hotels and expand the group's Village hotels and leisure clubs.

The Warrington-based group, which owns upmarket hotels including Brighton's Grand, mid-market Village hotels and Greens health and fitness clubs - for those who are really serious about getting fit - eventually saw the strategy start to pay off at the end of 2004.

It was outperforming the competition and improvement plans - such as the é2m re-vamp of the De Vere Mottram Hall Hotel in Cheshire, to "return it to past glories" - got under way.

In the spring, it sold its flagship hotel, The Belfry, the "spiritual home" of golf's Ryder Cup, for é186m to Irish cement tycoon Sean Quinn.

As part of the deal, De Vere continues to operate it under its own brand name, and will manage it for 25 years, and it enabled the group to pledge the return of é183m to shareholders through a special dividend of 159p a share.

Market

Recently, however, it has warned of a slowdown in the leisure market, announcing flat profits for the first half of this year - turnover was slightly down for the six months to 27 March, at é154.2m with pre-tax profits after one-off costs, of é19.3m.

But this is not signalling troubled waters ahead - it is just a note of caution of an emerging trend, says Mr Leaver.

The group says it has seen a strong corporate market, and that it has been switching into that area.

It also has a number of time-share lodges, and says sales in these are very promising, though its accounting policy will not recognise the sales until the second half.

Recently it announced a new management contract in Spain - the first outside the UK - with exclusive rights to manage a second.

And new Village hotels are on the way, with contracts exchanged on a new site in Leeds and terms agreed on three more.

"Our strategy is gaining positive momentum across the business," said chairman Peter Daresbury.